


Orchard's End

by OneHandedBooks



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A small cub that grows into one of the big cats, Arts of War, Gen, Hannigram Holiday Gift Exchange 2016, He was charming, Hojojutsu, Hunting, Mind Palace, Scent memory, Shibari, The way a cub is charming, Tracking, We'll Always Have Paris, Young Chiyoh, Young Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8905792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHandedBooks/pseuds/OneHandedBooks
Summary: "On still evenings, when the air was damp after a rain, we played a game; Hannibal would burn all kinds of barks and incense for me to identify by scent alone.” -Chiyoh
 For collidingcanvas/cosplaycosfightHannibal trotted up the buff stone steps of his uncle’s manor house, his arms laden with textbooks, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Condensation still clung to the long strands of his ashen hair, the fuzz of his charcoal sweater, the gold thread of the embroidered school crest on his chest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @collidingcanvas / cosplaycosfight.tumblr.com as a shipless gift in the Hannigram Holiday Exchange 
> 
> http://hannigramholidayexchange.tumblr.com

_"On still evenings, when the air was damp after a rain, we played a game; Hannibal would burn all kinds of barks and incense for me to identify by scent alone.” -Chiyoh_

Rain gave way to mist, to fog. Shrouding Paris in pale candyfloss before burning off in the stark September air.

Hannibal trotted up the buff stone steps of his uncle’s manor house, his arms laden with textbooks, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Condensation still clung to the long strands of his ashen hair, the fuzz of his charcoal sweater, the gold thread of the embroidered school crest on his chest.

He set his books on the polished oak desk in the corner of his bedroom and emptied the satchel into a drawer, absently arranging pens and papers in perfect parallel, mind fixed ahead on his plans for the long weekend.

In the small dressing room across from his bed, Hannibal traded school clothes for play clothes- shedding the striped silk tie and the grey sweater, the white buttoned shirt and dark wool slacks. In their place, he pulled on plaid flared trousers and a plum sweater, swapped damp black loafers for sturdy tan walking shoes. He looked himself over in the triple mirror and flicked an invisible speck off his sleeve before grabbing his canvas jacket and empty school bag and heading downstairs.

Hannibal found Chiyoh in the cold, cavernous dining room, arranging flowers at the long table under his aunt’s wordless instruction. Lady Murasaki gently corrected one of Chiyoh's choices, curling her slender fingers over Chiyoh’s and bending the branch of bright yellow wintersweet to the side to create more open space in the middle of the arrangement. Hannibal leaned against the square columned doorway to watch them, stricken by their orchid beauty. His aunt's pale kimono with its tiny red cranes skimming the floor. Chiyoh's dark glossy hair, hanging in a long neat braid down her back.

“Hannibal,” his aunt acknowledged without turning around.

Hannibal inclined his head slightly, crossed the dining room, and kissed his aunt's smooth perfumed cheek. "Aunt Murasaki."

“How was school this week?”

Hannibal sighed melodramatically, shrugged and stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. “Passable.”

A slender, quirked lip smile. "Do you have plans for the weekend?"

"I have plans for today."

Chiyoh glanced at him flickerquick, clocked his walking clothes out of the corner of her eye, and concealed a smile. She tucked another frond of bamboo grass into the side of her vase with exceptional nonchalance.

"Oh? What plans are those?" Lady Murasaki inquired.

Hannibal glanced over at Chiyoh then answered with a question of his own. "May Chiyoh be excused, Aunt Murasaki?"

"For what?"

"For an outing. The leaves are turning and it's very beautiful outside since it stopped raining. I thought we might ride our bicycles through the orchard."

Lady Murasaki set her flowers aside. "Chiyoh, would you like to ride your bicycle with Hannibal?"

Chiyoh suppressed a shiver of anticipation. "Yes please, Lady Murasaki."

"Your homework is finished?" It was a rhetorical question, disciplinary. She'd already spoken to Chiyoh's tutor earlier in the day, but she asked it out in any case, to reinforce the rules. To maintain order for Chiyoh, and for Hannibal, her children of chaos.

Chiyoh squeezed her slim hands together once then folded them properly again. "Yes, my Lady."

Lady Murasaki smiled at Chiyoh, a rare open smile, very nearly maternal. "All right. You may go."

Hannibal held out his hand. Chiyoh stepped gracefully around the end of the mahogany dining table and took it, lacing her small fingers through his. They turned to leave.

"And Hannibal," Lady Murasaki called after him.

Hannibal paused and looked back over his shoulder. A brief touch of irritation quickly smothered. "Yes, Aunt?"

"Be back and dressed properly before supper, please. Your uncle is having company."


	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal and Chiyoh pushed their bikes out of the stone stable, ran them down to the start of the orchard paths, and hopped on. They looked at each other with gliding joy as their legs pumped faster and faster, the wind lifting their hair from their faces, chilling their cheeks pink. Burning copperkettle leaves spun through the air against the washed blue sky. Autumn in full display.

Chiyoh’s school satchel bounced in her bike basket. In it was a thin paperback book, coiled jute rope, and bread and cheese liberated from the kitchen. Hannibal rode with his school bag slung across his shoulder, resting against his back. He’d traded books and pens for a folding vintner's knife, pieces of dried grapevine and tree bark, a stick of incense obtained from Lady Murasaki's rooms, and a dusty bottle of red wine purloined from his uncle’s neglected Italian collection. The bag smacked against his back as he rode and he found himself regretting the wine every time he hit a pothole or a rock or a clod of earth.

Panting, they cycled hard past the first stand of apple trees. Black gnarled branches reached for them from either side of the path. Their churning wire-spoked wheels chewed through brittle leaves that smelled of mild dry cider, threw up damp dirt and pinging stones. Chiyoh, struggling to keep pace, began to fall behind.

Hannibal pulled his bike to a sliding halt at the second row of trees and waited for Chiyoh to catch up. He planted his feet in the black earth and leaned on his handlebars, his breath harsh in his ears. Fat and dizzy bumblebees sipped at sweet fruit lying split and rotting in the sunblasted grass beneath the trees.

“Too fast, Hannibal,” Chiyoh complained as she pulled up beside him. “Your legs are longer.”

He reached out to tuck a wisp of fine dark hair behind her ear. “My apologies, little bird. That was inconsiderate of me. You may set the pace when we start again.”

“Are we going to the clearing still?”

“We are. But I want some apples to go with the bread and cheese you stole.”

“To go with the wine you stole,” she retorted, glancing at the bag over his shoulder.

He raised his chin at a grand angle and glanced down his nose at her with a raised eyebrow then snapped his kickstand down. She mirrored his haughty expression back at him, struck her own kickstand, and wandered off into the orchard with her satchel. While she was occupied plucking small ripe apples from the lowest branches, Hannibal peeled a long length of apple bark from one of the closest trees and stuck it in his bag.

When Chiyoh returned, satchel stuffed with fruit, they set off again, heading for orchard’s end.

At the bottom of the winding path was a small clearing, ringed with forgotten things. Busted wooden bushel baskets without bottoms threaded through with wild grape vines. A headless half statue of Aphrodite that had once stood by the pool. Rusted springs from the groundskeeper’s old pick-up truck and a clutch of green glittering beer bottles, labels devoured by decades of rain.

Chiyoh and Hannibal parked their bikes at the edge of the clearing and carried their satchels towards the firepit they’d built that summer. Chiyoh swept weeks of fallen leaves away from the stone circle and heaped them to one side while Hannibal gathered an armload of wood. He knelt on the packed earth to lay out a nest of kindling and a pyramid of branches overtop. He set match to tinder, thinking helplessly, as he always did, of Micha and the steelwhite bite of winter.

He sat back on his heels and stoked the fire with larger branches until it was burning well. Chiyoh sank gracefully to the ground at his side. Sat cross-legged and fed twigs and dried leaves to the flames, waiting.

Hannibal tore his gaze away from the hypnotic flicker and moved to face her. He crossed his legs and pulled his satchel into his lap, then unbuckled the bag’s leather straps and flipped it open. He pulled out a length of soft black cloth and drew it slithering through his hands. Chiyoh shivered with nervous energy, glancing between Hannibal’s avid eyes and the familiar blindfold.

“Ready?”

Chiyoh nodded, shifted until she was facing him squarely. She settled with her hands in her lap, chin lifted, eyes closed. “I am ready.”

Hannibal leaned forward on his knees and drew the blindfold over her eyes. Tied it gently, but firmly, behind her head. The orchard went momentarily silent as darkness fell. No wind. No birdsong. Chiyoh could feel the warmth of Hannibal’s cheek nearly pressed to her own, his breath raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck.

Hannibal sat back and brushed his thumbs along the bottom edge of the blindfold over the silk curves of her pinked cheeks. His voice was hushed. "Can you see?"

"No," Chiyoh whispered.

Hannibal took the paper-wrapped bundles of bark and incense out of his bag and set them in a neat straight line on the ground between them, then opened the first one- a bit of curled cinnamon. He held the end of the brittle bark in the fire until it flared bright, then blew it out. He lifted the smoldering edge and tilted it back and forth, guiding the thin ribbon of smoke towards Chiyoh.

She drew breath and frowned. "Too easy, Hannibal. Cinnamon."

"It's only a warm up."

Hannibal lit the stick of incense next and held it out.

Chiyoh sighed elaborately. "Incense. Your aunt burns it for prayers. Every night."

"Composition?" Hannibal pressed.

"Jathikai, pepper, cardamom.”

“And?”

Chiyoh thought a moment. “Bamboo.”

"Just so."

"Lady Murasaki is going to be cross when she finds out you burned one of her cinnamon sticks and her incense."

“She’ll never know unless you tell,” Hannibal murmured, a small conspiratorial smile playing around his mouth. “Ready for another?”

Chiyoh leaned forward in anticipation. Hands on her thighs. The black of the blindfold blending with the dark satin of her hair. “Yes.”

Hannibal took the long curl of damp apple bark and pressed it into the whitehot coals until it started smoking.

Chiyoh sniffed the air and laughed, high and girlish. The juicy smolder of new wood and the smell of cider were immediate and familiar. “Apple bark. Fresh. You peeled it while I was picking apples?”

Hannibal smiled tightly, unseen. Pleased with her progress and her smug impatience, but also slightly disappointed she’d guessed it so easily.  Apple bark was a new addition to their game and he really had thought it would be harder.

“What about this one?” he challenged, holding out a coil of smoking weathered grapevine.

Chiyoh breathed in grey smoke and cold air and flipped through the catalog of scent Hannibal had built with her over the past several months. “Grapevine.”

“Excellent,” Hannibal breathed. “Can you do two more?”

Chiyoh nodded once and then went still again. Waiting. Attentive. Head cocked slightly, like a raptor listening for the rustle of prey.

White oak was second to last and it gave her trouble. She could tell it was from a tree and not another vine. Dried, not fresh. Definitely not incense and nothing from her Lady's spice cabinet. It smelled something like earth and something like pencil shavings. Brittlesweet, like herbs and nuts. She shook her head, frustrated.

Hannibal watched her intently. "Breathe slowly," he coaxed. "Shut everything else out.”

Chiyoh breathed deeply then shook her head again and guessed. "It is a hardwood. Ash?"

Hannibal smiled slightly. "Close."

“Give me a hint.”

Hannibal shook his head, bit back a grin. “You've smelled this before. The information you need is already in your mind."

Chiyoh tilted her head again. Closed her eyes behind the blindfold. "Maple?"

"Definitely not."

Chiyoh scowled. "Tell me what it is, Hannibal."

"No. We'll save it and try again another time."

Hannibal buried the end of the oak bark in the dirt to extinguish it then wrapped it in the butcher paper and stuck it back in his bag. He took up the final piece, a delicate curl of knotty black bark.

“Last one,” he murmured, dipping the wood into the yellow tips of flame until it caught.

Thin blue smoke twined around Chiyoh’s frame and she inhaled. Hannibal watched intently as she recognized and then remembered, grief and longing shadowing her face. Home, Chiyoh thought. Home.

“Sakura,” she sighed wistfully, lower lip trembling. “Cherry blossom.”

“Cherry blossom,” Hannibal agreed, his voice soft and sorrowing. “You did very well.”

He reached behind Chiyoh’s head and untied the blindfold. Chiyoh blinked rapidly to clear her vision. Hannibal wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, peering at her with incising, inquiring interest.

“All right?” he asked.

Chiyoh sniffed once then nodded, brushing her hands briskly over her cheeks.

“Hungry?”

She nodded again.


	3. Chapter 3

Chiyoh unwrapped a small crusty loaf of bread and wedge of pale yellow cheese from a white cotton dishcloth then spread the cloth out on the hard ground. She set the bread and cheese on it alongside a little heap of the sweet-tart apples she’d picked earlier. Hannibal contributed two perfectly pristine linen napkins he’d snagged from the breakfront in the hall by the dining room. He held the wine bottle between his knees, spiked the cork, and drew it out with a pop. He inhaled delicately at the lip of the bottle, smiled with pleasure, and poured a small measure of deep red wine into two paper party cups.

Chiyoh eyed the printed flowers on the side of her cup and held it up with the garish design turned towards Hannibal.

“I didn’t have room for wine glasses this time,” he replied smoothly. “They would have broken anyway, smashing around in that bag.”

Hannibal folded the corkscrew back into the knife and unfolded the blade from the other side. He sliced the cheese and the bread and the apples and arranged them in a delicate multilayered fan on the kitchen towel. He ate the last apple slice from the blade of his knife before setting it aside then busied himself creating various compositions of fruit and cheese and bread. Chiyoh ate with quick and graceful economy, blushed red apples first, then bread bent around cheese in small sandwich bites.

“You will spoil your dinner,” Chiyoh chided as Hannibal carefully conveyed another trembling tower of food to his mouth.

He chewed slowly, shaking his head. He wiped his lips primly with the linen napkin before speaking. “I will not. I didn’t even eat lunch today. Double chemistry.” He poured another splash of wine into his paper cup then tilted the bottle in Chiyoh’s direction. “More?”

She shook her head, smiling slightly, cheeks flushed. “Too much wine already, Hannibal.”

Hannibal raised his cup to her in a little salute and drained it. Then he corked the wine and put it back in his bag.

Stuffed and satisfied, he and Chiyoh reclined on the pile of dried apple leaves at the side of the fire, crisped and warmed now by the crackling flames. They lay side by side and shoulder to shoulder, their feet stretching away in opposite directions.

Hannibal folded his hands on his chest and looked up at the deep blue sky, just beginning to go purple along the horizon. Loosed from the discipline of everyday things, his thoughts turned again and again to Mischa and to the man who’d hurt her. His lips curled into the slightest snarl and his hands clenched into fists around each other. He took a deep slow breath and forced himself to think of more productive things. Of his plans for the long weekend- research into revenge and returning home.

“Hannibal?” Chiyoh called softly.

“Yes?”

“Are you really going back to find that man? Who…who killed Mischa?”

“Oh yes,” he sighed, eyes half closed.

Chiyoh shifted restlessly in her fragrant bed of red and orange leaves. She glanced over at Hannibal again, but he seemed far away, in no mood to talk. She looked back up at the sky, thinking of her last cherry blossom festival in Kyoto, before Lady Murasaki brought her here, to Paris. Thinking of Hannibal’s burning bark. Of games and lessons.

"You're fidgeting," Hannibal accused gently, looking at her over his shoulder. "You’ve been fidgeting for five minutes. I can hear the leaves moving. Tell me what you’re thinking about."

Chiyoh turned her head to the side and returned his gaze steadily. Her eyes were a deep liquid black in the firelight. Hannibal made his face a mirror and practiced waiting patiently. Letting the silence grow and grow to see if Chiyoh would feel compelled to fill it. Finally, Chiyoh sat up and reached for her satchel.

She dug the paperback book and the coiled ropes out of her bag then settled back cross-legged at Hannibal’s side. She set the book against her knee and dropped the ropes onto Hannibal’s chest.

Hannibal started at the sudden impact, eyes flying open. Then he sat up and stretched, lean and languid, the heaped rope sliding into his lap. He picked up a length of it and drew it curiously through his hands, feeling the rough fibers prickle against his palms. His brow crinkled in confusion. He held the hank of rope to his nose, smelled machine oil and steel. Dry grass and the sweet bland scent of the horses. 

"This is from the stables."

Chiyoh nodded. "Yesterday, the grooms put in … .” She paused, straining for the French word. Her hands described an oval shape in the air, mimed pulling, hand over hand, at invisible rope.

“Block and tackle? For lifting?”

She nodded. “For lifting hay. I borrowed the extra."

"You stole the extra." As always, admiration not admonition.

Chiyoh blinked slowly, face placid but for the barest smile. 

Hannibal wrapped the length of rope around his hand and pulled experimentally, then let it uncoil again. "Do you mean for us to set traps with it?"

Chiyoh shook her head and handed him her book, Hojōjutsu and the Art of War.  Hannibal took it, eyes narrowing slightly. The cover showed a captured samurai on his knees. His arms bent back behind him over a narrow wooden pole. Bound with an elaborate web of knotted rope. Hannibal looked from the rope in his hands to the book then back at Chiyoh.

"What exactly are you planning to do with these?"

"I'm going to tie you to that oak tree at the edge of the orchard," she responded. ( _they burned oak branches in the daimonji bonfire. oh, oak bark. it was oak bark)_

Hannibal gave her an angled smile, pleased with her challenge. "And?"

"And you're going to see if you can get out and make it back to the house."

"Make it back before what?"

"Before I catch you."

"You’re going to track me?” His voice was amazed, delighted.

"Yes."

Their little fire burned dark in Hannibal’s reddish eyes. The specter of the man he would become skated skeletal over the fine bones of his face as he smiled at her. “Now?”

Chiyoh shook her head, satin braid swaying, faintly unsettled by his expression. “No time tonight." She gave him a pointed look “You have dinner. With fancy clothes and company.”

He shrugged in dismissive acknowledgment. “Tomorrow then. After lunch.”

She smiled and clasped her hands. “Tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

Chiyoh propped the hojōjutsu book open on their satchels and braced the middle pages open with a forked stick, the pointed end driven into the soft ground.

"You read the steps to me if I need you," she instructed, taking her ropes and Hannibal’s folding knife to the far side of the oak tree.

Hannibal put his back to the tree and shifted uncomfortably, the rough bark catching the fine fibers of his cashmere sweater, his blackwatch scarf. He turned his head, straining to see Chiyoh out of the corner of his eye. "You should memorize it, you know."

"You memorize it," Chiyoh returned.

"Perhaps I will."

"I do have it almost memorized." She took off her brown leather gloves and stuck them in the pocket of her houndstooth jacket. Then she bent the first rope in half, making a loop at the top and dropping the trailing ends to the ground. "Put your hands behind you. Around the tree trunk."

“I can't reach all the way around.” Hannibal’s tone was peevish, but excited.

“As far as you can then.”

Chiyoh pulled the sleeves of Hannibal’s sweater down over his wrists to protect them, then started wrapping the rope around them. She rocked slightly from foot to foot as she wove a wide, many stranded loop between Hannibal’s wrists. She twisted the loop and ends around the wrapped rope at his right wrist and started to cinch it closed, pinning Hannibal’s arms slightly behind him against the tree trunk. Hannibal groaned under his breath as the ropes bit into his flesh through the soft fabric of the sweater.

“Stop squirming,” Chiyoh admonished, trying to pull the ends of the rope through the top loop. Her voice was slightly muffled by Hannibal's folding knife, which she was holding in her teeth.

“I'm not squirming,” Hannibal objected. "You'd never capture a person like this, you know. No one's going to stand still and let you tie them up."

"Samurais captured enemies quickly in battle with hojōjutsu,” Chiyoh mumbled around the knife.

She cinched the first tie closed at his right wrist creating a coiled cuff around it then moved quickly to wrap the trailing ends around the river of rope stretched between Hannibal’s wrists. Right to left, like wrapping leather around the hilt of a sword, closing the long loops down into a tight column.

Hannibal looked at the open book again. “Only if you do it that way,” he said, jerking his chin at the instructions. “With the first rope around the throat to cut off the air, then run the line down tight around the arms.”

Chiyoh took the knife out of her mouth and shoved it impatiently into her coat pocket beside the gloves. Then she snugged the rope up against Hannibal’s left wrist and pulled hard. “I left out the rope around the throat,” she said calmly. “Do you want me to start over with it?”

Hannibal shook his head, amused, shaggy hair brushing his cheeks. “It’s your game, Chiyoh.”

Chiyoh split the ends of the rope, tucking one between the jute cuff now circling Hannibal’s left wrist and bringing the other end up on the opposite side. She crossed the ends, left over right, right over left, and cinched the square knot tight. She carefully tucked the ends of the knot into the cuff, away from Hannibal’s fingers.

"Next,” she called.

Hannibal paused, struggling with the unfamiliar Japanese characters, then read out the next set of instructions.

Chiyoh followed along, doubling a second length of prickly rope and bending it around the wrapped column between Hannibal’s hands. She slipped the loop down neatly, then ran the ends of the rope around the tree again and again- three, four, five times. Wrapping them around Hannibal’s chest, crossing them over each shoulder, circling his arms. Finally, Chiyoh yanked the ends of the rope behind the tree again and tied off with a double square knot- high up, between his shoulders.

Hannibal felt her fingers, light as butterfly wings, fluttering over the ropes encircling his biceps, his wrists, his shoulders, his sides. Evaluating her work. She pulled deliberately on the line around his chest to tighten one of the knots further and Hannibal gasped. Something about being tied this way seemed to fire his blood. The pressure. The feeling of being tightly held perhaps. He turned the sensation over in his mind. Half of him curious, cataloging. The other half trembling with anxiety and excitement.

Chiyoh stalked slowly back to the front of the tree, running a finger along Hannibal’s ribs under the rope to test the tension. She arranged his blackwatch scarf neatly over the ropes criss-crossing his chest and smoothed it flat, then licked her lips, hesitant. She held up the black cloth Hannibal used to blindfold her when they burned the bark. Hannibal breathed in sharply, hesitant, then nodded. Chiyoh stood on her toes and Hannibal dipped his head so that she could tie the blindfold over his eyes.

“Good luck,” she whispered, warm against his cheek, then dashed off.

Hannibal pulled a little against the ropes to gauge the give and felt the knots tighten mercilessly. His heart was pounding. Blood rushing in his ears, drowning the sounds of Chiyoh's feet in the leaves. Uncertainty. Fear. Exhilaration. He must calm his breathing. He inhaled slowly, forcing himself to relax. To listen.

"You shouldn't have blindfolded me," he taunted. "I can hear you better now." ( _and i can smell you. leathershoes-wooljacket-gunoil-flowers_ ) "I hear your little feet crunching in the grass."

He paused, listening to the snapping twigs, Chiyoh’s faint sighing breath. “You're on my right."

He paused again, head tilted, scenting the cold air. The first frost was coming and soon. "Now you're standing by that little pine tree with the moss on it."

He listened to her flit through the trees. "You're panting, Chiyoh. Are you afraid?"

"You’re sweating," Chiyoh called darkly from somewhere behind his left shoulder. A little note of childish disdain in her voice. "I think you are afraid." 

Hannibal startled and pulled involuntarily against the ropes, which thinned and bit back. He hadn't heard her move that time. 

More footsteps. Light and quick like running. A little lifting, hopping noise, like a rabbit bounding away. Then nothing. Silence, deafening and entire.

Chiyoh stared down at Hannibal from the lower limbs of the tree across from him. Clinging to the thick pine branches like a little hawk. Waiting. Heart racing. Shivering and pleased.

Hannibal turned his blind eyes side to side. Inhaling, hoping to catch the perfume of her on the wind. Ears straining for the sound of footsteps, for light breathing, for anything.

He wet his lips anxiously. "Chiyoh?"

Nothing. He felt a little thrill of dismay. She wouldn’t have just left him out here, would she?

He rotated his shoulders against the ropes, feeling for slack in the line. Yes, he'd thought so- there, on the right. He shifted his right shoulder forward then wriggled his right arm until he could bend it up behind him a little more. There was a keystone knot between his shoulders. If he could reach it… and if Chiyoh hadn’t wrapped the tail ends in tightly … .

The tips of his fingers skimmed the ends of the rope. He paused, bright with sudden savage hope. He flicked his fingers experimentally upwards and brushed the ends of the rope again. Yes. There. He pushed himself harder, forcing his arms to bend, grimacing at the stretch. Nearly. Nearly. His fingers caught the ends of the rope dangling from the center knot then slipped off. He groaned, frustrated, head falling back against the tree trunk. He pushed back hard against the rough bark and pulled forward, trying to get more play in the web of rope even as the running knots tightened further. He leaned back, inched his arms up a tiny bit higher, and grabbed the tail end of the knotted rope pinning his shoulders to the tree. Finally. He pulled down hard, wincing at the pain in his joints, grinning as the knot came free.

“One down,” he called triumphantly. He turned his head side to side, still trying to figure out where Chiyoh had gone.

Chiyoh smiled, but stayed silent, safely aloft and screened by pine branches. She watched as Hannibal panted and writhed and struggled through the rest of the ties, picking the last tight knot around his right wrist apart with his sharp teeth.

Finally, he stood away from the oak tree, rubbing at the harsh marks of the ropes around his wrists and over his collarbone. He untied the blindfold and shoved it in his pocket, glanced around the thin, empty woods, then headed for home at a quick quiet clip.

Chiyoh dropped lightly to the ground just as Hannibal disappeared into the orchard. “Run,” she whispered and took off after him.


End file.
